Late News from 'Swiggo
SUNY honors Oswego professors Belt, Lewis with Chancellor's Awards
The State University of New York has bestowed the 2012 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching on two professors whose work has been transformative for decades of Oswego students: John H. Belt and Tracy K. Lewis.
Belt, a teacher of technology design for 37 years at Oswego, has earned lifelong admiration among former students in many fields for his groundbreaking and rigorous teaching methods in pursuit of making the world a more livable, sustainable place, nomination materials said.
The nomination letter for Lewis, a multilingual teacher-scholar for nearly three decades and a pre-eminent expert on the literature of Paraguay, points out that he has taught Spanish, Portuguese, Spanish literature and more in challenging but supportive fashion, always ready to provide extra assistance.
‘Leader among leaders’

A longtime proponent of the work and philosophy of the late R. Buckminster Fuller, most famous for the geodesic dome, Belt has earned countless testimonials from students—and from Fuller’s daughter, Allegra Fuller Snyder, professor emerita of dance and dance ethnology at UCLA, who wrote a letter of support for his nomination.
“Over the last 10 or 15 years, I have been able to give more time and awareness to the many people who are carrying forth and developing my father’s ideas further since his death in 1983 and making them more accessible to larger groups of people, particularly students,” Snyder wrote. “I have been aware that a leader, among these leaders, is John Belt with his exciting session at his own campus at Oswego, his leadership in ‘The Synergistic Collaborative’ and the coordinator of symposiums at other institutions.”
A former colleague of Belt’s at Oswego for 13 years, Michael Adams, now president of Fairleigh Dickinson University, wrote, “John Belt is a thoughtful, demanding, supportive and transformational teacher. … He reshapes ideas and offers different and multiple views of the world.”
In an August 2010 interview, Belt said what his students make of themselves is what he treasures most. “I keep in touch with many graduates. That’s very rewarding,” he said. “One is a designer for Apple, and his only (higher) education is Oswego. His last project was the iPad. He works with (Apple designer) Jonathan Ive and Steve Jobs. Another who studied with me revamped a model design workshop, which is state of the art among East Coast industrial model builders. Another is vice president of General Electric’s Automotive Transportation. … It’s not only about the content. It’s really what they learn about themselves. It’s what they internalize.”
Another alumnus wrote that Belt “has a drive to instill in his students something most of them won’t appreciate until years later: the need to care. His life is a direct reflection of what he is trying to teach: from the composting station in his lab; to the constant running of videos of the greats such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Piet Mondrian and Buckminster Fuller; to the works of past students … Professor Belt’s philosophy has released me from the fear of the unknown and for that I am forever grateful.”